21 comments:

Alas, corruption, graft and defiance never die in Queens County--as epitomized by John Liu. Maybe his mother can offer his some of that sweatshop work that he claimed to be working at under substandard, illegal conditions. Then again, I'm still worried by what still appears to be legal and ethical with our tainted, fallen politicians--as opposed to the majority of illegal activities here in the public dumping ground of Queens that continue to flourish by the second! Bring back Civic Virtue to its former site of purpose and glory, Melinda Katz---and return him to a working fountain base in Kew Gardens! Just look at how many toppled politicians were indicted on corruption charges since your predecessor, Helen Marshall, ordered his evicted removal (Dan Halloran, Shirley Huntley, Malcolm Smith, Ruben Wills and William Scarborough, to name only a few out of many).

Clearly, Civic Virtue is screaming out for his vigilant perch on Queens Boulevard---the least of which to monitor your administration from within the faulty walls of Borough Hall itself. After all, vigilance is the price of liberty! Where is the people's democracy, Madam Katz? Where is the openness and transparency that you assured us, when you spoke about a new era in leadership at Community Board 9, in June, 2014? So far, its "Hurry Up And Wait" for justice and public integrity to prevail---as people like me and Civic Virtue Task Force continue to languish in perpetuity! Change? What change? Where? When? How? Silence and complicity is not an option, Madam President! Your subjects demand accountable, honest and ethical leadership (that leads by example)!

Dont' be petty, Anonymous. My post on John Liu reads like a thesis, because I myself have earned many graduate degrees (as well as a PhD), and because I'm dealing with an audience who has the actual attention span of a bag of hammers!

Now, regarding your comments about punctuation (not punctuality, as you incorrectly, and ironically, stated, because its meaning refers to being on time--not grammar), is way off caliber, not to mention unjustified!

Therefore, perhaps you can share with me and the audience of Queens Crap where you were certified in graduate study---and focus your time and attention on the derelict, disloyal, dishonest, corrupt and cowardly politicians of Queens--instead of your petty and marginal issues with grammar and punctuation, that once again, you were not even able to maintain with accuracy in your reply!

Now I know (and the rest of everyone on this blog), why there are so many corrupt and scamming politicians in Queens, when the rank and file are more interested in excoriating and vilifying a concerned activist like me (who puts his name, face and purpose on the line, instead of hiding under anonymous, online obscurity), over mere pettiness, instead of a watchful vigilance, community outreach and challenging authority with regard to the corrupt, political climate that allowed a con artist like John Liu to sloppily stumble onto the city payroll in the first place. Nice going, Anonymous! How's that for "punctuality?"

In simpler, most brief parlance, Anonymous, why not keep a watchful eye on the vile, vapid, vacuous and corrupt politicians throughout Queens County, with the same intensity and focus that you've managed to criticize my grammar and syntax (with an overly critical eye) which, incidentally is proper, and perfectly synthesized---unlike our failed political leadership!

Give up on Civic Virtue, Anonymous? What's next on your list of apathy---freedom and democracy? It never ceases to amaze me about Queens residents who continue to plead for change, instead of demanding it through activism, protest, rally and resistance.

Evidently, the statue may already sadly be a lost cause for you , Anonymous, but it certainly isn't even anything close to a lost cause for my determined organization's membership (Civic Virtue Task Force), and the many of empowered and liberated fighters like me, whose community activism and continued demands for honest, ethical leadership (that leads by example), will never be a justified reason for defeat, in the wake of Borough Hall public betrayal and worse, political whimsy because of a minority of uneducated objectors (in art history, that is, and beyond), who have wrongly dictated in place of majority rule and public referendum.

For years, Community Board 9 has taken many votes on keeping Civic Virtue exactly where it has been prominently displayed for nearly 71 years---until a corrupt, voracious thief like Helen Marshal showed her final act of contempt and defiance against Queens County (the borough that she spoke of with such pathetic, counterfeit fondness), with unprecedented shame and impunity, by spending more than $100,000 of taxpayer money (without due process and public consent), to remove a 16-ton statue because of a handful of frightfully uneducated women who were offended by their own false (and knowingly false, no less), perceptions of misogyny that they've wrongly and purposely ascribed to the universal message of Civic Virtue's purest integrity for all humankind!

Therefore, it takes a special kind of arrogance, entitlement and flagrant abuse of public power and trust to make a statue of that size and weight to magically disappear, and be flat bedded off to a Brooklyn graveyard---all done on the heels of Hurricane Sandy, with amazing speed and urgency that even the breakout of a national plague could not rival--and you and I paid for this statue's eviction (and conservation) that we can't even publicly enjoy in our own backyard!

So, as long as there are criminal sociopaths like Donald Manes (deceased, but still very much alive), Claire Schulman, Helen Marshall, and more recently, Malcolm Smith, Dan Halloran, Ruben Wills, William Scarborough and Shirley Huntley (all of whom were either indicted and/or convicted of corruption, ever since Civic Virtue itself was hastily and wrongly evicted from its Kew Gardens perch (and fountain base), on Saturday, December 12, 2012, that left an abandoned, blighted, gated, fenced in eyesore in its wake, for more than 2.5 years (and counting), then I, along with my dedicated members of Civic Virtue Task Force will continue to provide the very definition of honest, ethical leadership that continues to be missing in action at Borough Hall (where there is a clear and monstrously evident need for an allegorical statue like Civic Virtue to return to its gifted, home base), in order to keep eternal, around the clock vigil over the many examples of profligate, wanton waste, mismanagement, corruption, graft, kickbacks, payoffs, cover-ups, cronyism, nepotism, favoritism, dysfunction, dishonesty, dishonor, disloyalty and a dereliction of public duty that has never stopped emanating from a broken Borough Hall (not to mention the corrupt politicians who still claim monarchy rule, by forceful, aggressive takeover control), and who now even continue to go to jail for their egregious betrayals---beyond reason and sanity! Since corruption will never cease, then neither will my organization's thankless efforts to fight for our noble, admired statue's rightful return to Kew Gardens Plaza---where NOTHING else will ever take its place--nor was it ever welcome, wanted or publicly discussed by this new (but very old) administration of secrets, lies, delays, stall tactics and cover-ups that continue to devalue honesty.

Ok, Richard, thoroughly answered, and revealing in your zealotry. Seems a lost cause to me, but ok. I am more interested in the opinions of other posters since I know yours already, but thanks for again laying it out. Though I think 'sociopath' may be a little strong for corrupt pols given the existence of the tsarnaevs and bahmers of the world. But no one ever said you weren't hyperbolic. Ciao.

If you think that an accurate descriptive like "sociopath" is a little too strong for today's rogue political culture, Anonymous, then it's about time that you raised your threshold, because that is exactly the kind of puzzling, constituent silence and complicity that continues to rob, dupe, bilk, fleece, swindle, scam and steel from your pocket and mine (with impunity), and there is nothing even remotely hyperbolic about that!

Have you opened your eyes lately, if only to see what a disturbingly "raw sewage plant" of entrenched corruption and graft that Queens County has become, over the last 40 years of crumbling neglect and disparity??? Why, it smells here as bad as it looks---and all from the top on down! Just like the broken windows theory of erosion and decay, it starts with the unauthorized removal of a towering statue (that should have been preserved, conserved and land marked, at its exact location---instead of hauled off in secrecy and darkness, because of audacious, political whimsy---against public will and in clear violation of Community Board 9's due process).

But, according to you, I've overreacted with hyperbole and alarmism---while Queens County itself continues to be torched and tonsured by systemic corruption and graft!

Perhaps you don't care to take a stand in your own backyard, and maybe even actually enjoy the abject poverty, rampant peasantry and Third Worldism that has consumed this politically abused borough like a diseased locust invasion! Or, maybe you don't like Queens at all. Clearly, that is your prerogrative, Anonymous.

However, my deterined preference is to battle for constituent freedom and democracy, whether it be for all designated community board due process, or for the capricious and cowardly eviction of a public statue (and precious work of art that is in shortest supply boroughwide), that a majority of Queens residents have resoundingly stated that they wanted to keep this gift of Civic Virtue, well before it was ever displaced and tampered with in the first place (at taxpayer cost, no less)!

Therefore, leave the hard work and labor to me, my loyal followers and Task Force members, dear Anonymous, and I'll be happy to leave you to your own critical devices of inaction, where I am certain that you'll continue to complain about high taxes, electricity, water, sanitation, illegal immigration, blighted neighborhoods, overcrowding, over development---or whatever the complaint du jour happens to be! As for me, I prefer to enter this hostile, brazen battle fully armed---or surrender immediately (like you), to Neo-Fascism! Now, you're welcome! Ciao!

Assumption, or speculation, Anonymous? Given how I've actually taken real action, with regard to addressing a profoundly important matter that I, along my organization, find to be way beyond ordinary outrage (not to mention a betrayal of public trust that devalues honesty and ethics), I am nevertheless trying very purposefully to stay on topic here.

Therefore, since I don't wish to take personal issue with you (regardless of your unfair and overly critical comments against my examples of civic duty, visibility and challenge), I am consequently left with a selection of theory possibilities as to why you don't believe that a publicly gifted statue to Queens (by a former mayor of great distinction and integrity like Fiorello LaGuardia, no less), should be recklessly evicted in the absence of any and all public vote, support and community input, in order for "gestapo" tactics to keep chipping away at Civic Virtue itself, simply because of your feelings that suggest how there are more important matters to adjudicate in this pitifully neglected borough (there will always be matters to address---there's no shortage)!

In closing, you certainly have every right to your opinion. But, I prefer to deal with an open record of truth, fact, evidence and proof that continues to question, probe and challenge the repeated, derelict orders of rogue public servants (who betray all pretense of custodial trust), that defiantly ordered the statue's secretive, publicly unwelcome (and unwanted) removal in the first place---and made worse because we all paid for its tragic departure without consent!

Now, if memory serves, these were the same fledgling, pogromist tactics that were forced upon an oppressed people of another place and time, that led to the destruction of all personal freedoms, not to mention how said destruction followed actual genocide! In both cases, it started with small, unassuming restrictions in personal freedom, where our very world history could easily be in jeopardy of repeating itself, Anonymous.

That's why vigilance is always the price of liberty--and what better way to honor worldwide, liberty embracing and promoting civic virtue, by the presence of a breathtaking statue's return to its Kew Gardens home to personify it, and one that is strategically visible for everyone to take in full, artful stride--not banished to another borough's graveyard---among the dead (and on temporary loan, no less!)!

And that's why all of my Civic Virtue Task force members, and like minded followers take any threat to the statue's allegorical message (that demands its rightful return by way of public democracy and community board due process), as seriously as freedom itself! After all, without Civic Virtue, society would decay into collapse, decadence, beggary, obscurity, quiet desperation, and finally anarchy. Sound familiar, does it?

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